The Field of the Disappeared
by CoolBreeze1
Summary: It looked like any other field on any of the myriad of planets they had visited. They should have known it wasn’t. Set in season 5, but no major spoilers. Shep whump - brief mention of torture.


**The Field of the Disappeared**

It looked like any other field on any of the myriad of planets they had visited. They should have known it wasn't.

Rodney McKay shifted on his knees and tried to loosen the rope tying his wrists behind his back. His fingers were going numb. Teyla sat next to him unmoving, staring intently at the primitive log hut in front of them. Ronon was on the other side, muscles quivering as he strained against the bindings. Rodney was sure he could hear the man's teeth grinding in rage.

He thought again of the field. There was nothing about the field that had screamed _danger._ It was just a field with rows of dark, plowed earth. Just a field.

How were they supposed to know any better?

oOo

"Ronon, Teyla, you know this place?" Sheppard asked.

The stargate was set in a grassy clearing, a cool breeze carrying a faint flowery scent and the distant chirping of birds. Rodney felt coiled muscles in his back and shoulders relax. He'd definitely been holed up in his lab for too many days in a row—not that he'd admit that to any of his gung-ho nature teammates. The sky overhead was a light blue, and the grass at his feet wet with dew.

"Nope."

"This place does not look familiar to me either, Colonel."

Rodney looked at the life signs detector anyway. There was no one but them around. He'd known that was the case—in his mind, he'd tested his instincts before looking at the read-out, and he'd been right. No one came running out of the trees screaming at them or firing guns or arrows. The air smelled clean and fresh and safe, and he stowed the Ancient device in his pocket with a sense of triumph.

The four of them fell into a half-planned line along a well-worn path into the woods. Sheppard was first, then Teyla, then him, then Ronon. They almost always walked in the same pattern. Thirty minutes later, the trees thinned out and the path widened into one that was clearly manmade.

It was wide enough for all four of them to walk side by side. It stretched out flat and straight in front of them, and it was lined with trees. Rodney caught up to Teyla and matched her stride, but Sheppard stayed a little ahead, and Ronon continued to walk behind them.

Rodney peered through the trees at the dark fields on either side. Both fields were huge, at least as wide as ten football fields, and ringed on all sides with woods. It looked like the soil had recently been turned over on both fields, and a white fog clung to the ground in patches. He pulled out his life signs detector and switched the setting, searching for energy signals.

The plowed field and straight path indicated people with at least a marginal understanding of tools and agriculture. He didn't have high hopes of anything beyond another farming community, but at the very least, they might get a good meal out of this.

"No energy readings in the vicinity," he reported out loud.

"There are obviously people around here," Sheppard responded, waving his hand at the field on the right.

"The question is where. I haven't seen anyone yet. They could be days away from us in any direction," Rodney said and sucked in his stomach. His mind was settling on the idea of a hot meal, and sooner was always better than later.

"Nope," Ronon said, elusive as ever.

"Care to elaborate?" Rodney asked when Ronon didn't.

"The people aren't days away from us in any direction," he said, smiling at Rodney.

Rodney narrowed his eyes, wondering if the man was messing with him. He looked like he was messing with him. In fact, with his supersonic hearing, he could probably hear Rodney's stomach trying to digest itself and somehow he was trying to screw with Rodney's next meal. Rodney pulled out a powerbar and bit off the end.

Ronon pointed through the trees. "They're in that direction, about an hour away if we cut through the field."

"Wha—" Rodney started, then sputtered as he choked on bits of powerbar.

"Calm down, McKay. It's not that exciting," Sheppard laughed while Rodney guzzled half of his canteen of water. He saw Teyla smile, but she didn't laugh and she was courteous enough to ask if he was alright when he stopped coughing up his lungs. He capped his canteen with a huff, then stared through the trees across the field.

On the other side of the field, a half dozen columns of smoke weaved their way into the sky above a distant mass of trees. Fires, from fireplaces or campfires. That meant people, probably people cooking. Rodney swallowed the last of his powerbar as the group turned off the path and stepped toward the field.

oOo

The square hut sat in the center of the village. It was raised up on stilts and wasn't so much made of logs as it was thick piled branches tied to a simple frame. In front of the hut, a large campfire ringed with stones burned red-hot embers. One of the villagers used a long metal stick to stir it every few seconds, kicking sparks up into the air.

Rodney was close enough to feel the heat of the embers even though the flames had died down. All it would take was another dry log, and the fire would burst into life again. The villager ignored them, keeping his attention on the hut.

The door of the hut was covered in fabric, and Rodney could hear people moving around inside. The low murmur of voices floated toward him, but he couldn't make out the words.

His feet were going numb. His ankles and knees were burning from kneeling in the dirt for so long. If he stayed in that position much longer, there was sure to be long-term health effects—torn ligaments, strained muscles, nerve damage. His shoulders ached from being yanked behind him when his arms were tied together, and he'd had to stop trying to loosen the ropes around his wrists. They were ripping into his skin. The ropes had been weaved around his arms and then his ankles, keeping him in a perpetually hunched over position.

Ronon was the obvious threat. They'd tied him up with extra care. One of these days, he would need to show Rodney how to hide knives all over his body. Rodney only had one rope around his arms. He was apparently not much of a threat. That only showed exactly how primitive these people were, if they didn't recognize the awful power of his intellect. He could flatten this entire village with a AA battery.

"Are you free yet?" he hissed at Ronon.

Ronon was squirming against the ropes, glaring at the man stirring the embers.

"Ronon," he whispered a little more loudly.

"Silence," the Fire Pit Man yelled at them, and if Rodney had been able to move his locked-up knees, he would have kicked Ronon in the shin.

"Well?" he asked a second later, when their guard turned away from them.

"Working on it," Ronon grunted.

Fire Pit Man turned to glare at them again, and Rodney made a show of clamping his mouth shut. _No talking here—move along. Nothing to hear._

Teyla was irritatingly still next to him, her gaze focused on the hut. Rodney looked at her face. He knew he was not very good at reading people, but even he could see the anger peeling off of her in waves, and beneath that, so small he almost missed it, was fear. She stared at the door to the hut as if she could see through the solid fabric at what was happening inside.

Rodney did not want to know what Teyla thought she was seeing inside the hut, but he turned his attention back to the door anyway and stared until his eyes dried out and he had to blink or risk cracking his retinas. Sooner or later, something would happen—either in the hut or out of it. Either Sheppard would come flying out the door, P90 waving as he showered bullets into the sky and sent these primitive villagers cowering into the woods, or Ronon would finally break free of the ropes and tear the hut down with his bare hands.

Rodney was a man prone to panic. He knew this about himself. Panic geared his mind and body for any emergency, winding him up until he reached solutions to impossible situations faster than even he thought he was capable of doing. Panic worked for Rodney McKay.

He could feel it building up now. He was in the middle of a village with his hands tied up behind his back. Two of his teammates were on the ground with him, the other had been dragged off to the chief's hut for who knew what reason. It couldn't be a good reason, or they wouldn't have been tied up in the first place. They wouldn't have smacked Sheppard on the side of the head with that board when he'd refused to be separated from his team. They wouldn't have had to drag him through the dirt and up the steps to the hut, pulling on arms they'd tied behind his back.

"Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic."

"Silence!" the guard yelled again, taking two or three threatening steps forward. Ronon snarled, and Rodney close his mouth so quickly his teeth rattled in his jaw.

He hadn't realized he'd said anything out loud. He knew from past experience that talking out loud to oneself was the first step toward full-blown panic.

"Remain calm, Rodney," Teyla whispered. "We will find a way out of this."

"How can you be so sure?" he hissed, but too loudly.

Fire Pit Man pounced, dropping his stir stick and smacking Rodney across the face hard with the back of his hand. Rodney fell backward, landing painfully on his arms.

oOo

Rodney crossed his arms, watching Sheppard step away from the trees and into the dark dirt of the field. His boots sink at least two inches into the mud. Granted it wasn't squelching mud, but it was still wet enough to cling to every inch of clothing. Teyla stepped out as well and grimaced as her feet sank into the ground.

"Are you sure we want to cross the field? It looks all muddy."

"Come on, McKay. It's not that bad," Sheppard answered. As if to prove his point, he took another step away from the trees.

"After you, McKay," Ronon said from behind him, and the man sounded entirely too happy at the prospect of walking through the field. He shoved Rodney in the back, and Rodney took a tumbling step forward into the dirt.

Definitely mud. The ground felt like a rainstorm had just passed through, and those patches of fog were unsettling. There seemed to be a solid bank up against the trees at the far end of the field.

Sheppard had already turned and started walking, and the group fell into the usual pattern. They'd chit-chatted earlier, but silence pressed down on them now, and Rodney shivered. The mud was slippery and growing wetter, and he focused on the ground, putting one dirt-clogged foot in front of the other.

"I wonder what they're growing here?" Sheppard asked.

Rodney looked around him. They were surrounded by the sludge, the trees far away mirages through the shifting haze. The plowed rows looked less straight and less plowed now that they were actually walking among them, The surface of the mud looked untouched, and it was littered with smooth, round stones.

"I do not believe this field is used for growing anything," Teyla said.

Rodney bent down and scooped up one of the stones. It looked like an ordinary rock. He flipped it over and ran his thumb over an odd indentation in the center of the polished surface. It was a symbol of some sort, but not one he recognized.

"Weird," he mumbled.

"What's weird?" Sheppard asked, turning around to face Rodney. He continued to walk, and Rodney could almost imagine the colonel catching his heel on a clump of mud and landing on his ass. Almost.

"What are you grinning at?" Sheppard asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Sorry," Rodney said, clearing his throat. "This rock, it's got some kind of symbol etched into it."

"This one too," Ronon said from behind him.

Sheppard stopped and grabbed a handful of pebbles. He flipped through them, tossing them on the ground one by one. "What do you think it means?" he asked, and he looked around the field again, his expression tightening.

It was his commando face—Rodney knew the look. His eyes darted quickly around him, scouring the thicker pockets of mist for danger. The field was eerily quiet. The scent of flowers and plants had disappeared, consumed by the smell of wet dirt. The breeze had died down as well, and the trees ringing the field were too far away for Rodney to hear the birds nesting in their branches.

"I do not know. I have never seen such a thing before," Teyla answered. Ronon didn't answer, but Rodney had glanced at him and seen his eyes doing the same commando thing that Sheppard's eyes were doing.

When he was thirteen, his sister had dared him to watch Swamp Thing all alone, in the dark. The comic books were one thing, but seeing the swamp creature come alive on screen was a whole different ball game. He'd slept with a flashlight and a hockey stick under his covers for a month afterward, much to his sister's amusement.

_Something's going to leap out of the mud and swallow us all hole. Woolsey will have no idea what happened to us. If we're lucky, maybe they'll eventually uncover a scrap of our clothing, or one of our Ancient devices. _

Ancient devices. He scrambled for the life signs detector in his pocket, dropping bits of trash into the mud in the process. He could feel his heart pounding, and he tapped the side as if that would make it work faster.

Nothing. No little white dots showing something coming toward them. He breathed a sigh of relief that they weren't in any immediate danger.

"What's up, Rodney?" Sheppard asked in that sing-song lilt he only used to push Rodney's buttons.

Rodney adjusted the settings on the device, widening the radius of his search. A dozen tiny white dots began blinking on the edge of the screen.

"People, ahead of us," Rodney answered, waving his hand in the direction of the village. The smoke trails continued to weave above the tree line and disappear into the sky.

People. That's who they were walking toward anyway, right? They wanted to meet the people. Chit-chat around the campfire. Eat food.

The others pressed forward toward the village. Rodney had sunk into the mud up to his ankles, and he pulled at his leg. The mud released it with a disgruntled squelch, shooting clumps of dirt into his face.

oOo

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Rodney yelled, struggling to push himself back up and onto his knees. Ronon and Teyla were yelling at Fire Pit Man, but their village guard stared at them impassively. Rodney had landed on his wrists, and the ropes had dug into his flesh with a vicious bite.

Sweat rolled off his face with the effort of pulling himself up. He had to roll onto one shoulder then inch his way up, digging his chin into Ronon's arm. Ronon hunched down then straightened slowly, doing his best to help Rodney sit up. Who knew how useful hands were in picking yourself up off the ground?

When he was finally back on his knees, he bent forward, gasping in oxygen. Fire Pit Man took a step toward him, and Rodney closed his eyes, waiting for the blow. He could hear Ronon growling and grunting as he strained against the ropes, and Teyla was leaning over him, trying to protect his larger body with her smaller one.

The sudden pounding of footsteps at the door of the grass hut froze everyone. Rodney opened his eyes to see the fabric flap pushed aside and the village chief step out. At least, he thought it was the village chief. Going into the hut, the chief had looked like any other farmer in the Pegasus Galaxy—loose homespun clothing draped over a thin frame. He emerged wearing a black tunic over his clothes, an intricate gold design sewn into the front.

Most striking, though, was the black paint that covered every square inch of his face and neck. The paint was the color of the field, and Rodney wandered if the two were related. The chief looked around the central square of the village, his white eyes darting back and forth in his head. Rodney felt a shiver jerk down his back, pulling him into a stillness he hadn't been able to achieve until then.

Men filed out behind the chief, wearing the same black tunic and face paint. Rodney scanned their faces for Sheppard's. Where was he? His fingers were tingling behind him. In the last few minutes, the rope around his wrists had tightened, and he could feel the circulation to his hands slowly cutting off. Now would be a good time for Sheppard to come flying out the door and rescue them.

There was jam at the door as two villagers backed out, carrying what Rodney thought was a table. When they stepped down and the table tilted, he choked on an intake of air.

Sheppard lay face down on the platform—more a stretcher than a table. His hands had been pulled over his head until the arms were straight, and the wrists tied to the end of the stretcher with more rope than had been used on Ronon. His shins had been propped up, the knee bent to almost ninety degrees. More ropes wrapped around his calves, securing his legs to a short post at the end. His bare, bootless and sockless feet hung freely in the air.

"What do you intend to do?" Teyla yelled, and her voice sounded a little hoarse. Rodney swallowed, not daring to take his eyes off of Sheppard.

"You touch him, you die," Ronon hissed.

The chief flinched but didn't back down from Ronon's glare—not such a heroic task in Rodney's mind, given that Ronon was tied up with fourteen ropes and surrounded by angry villagers.

"Whatever laws we have broken or trespasses we have committed were accidental," Teyla said, though she sounded less diplomatic than usual to Rodney with that rasp in her voice. "Please, do not punish him for a mistake. We meant you no harm. We wished only to make your acquaintance."

Sheppard was set down in front of them on four upright logs, and the stretcher turned back into a table. Rodney got his first good look at his friend's face. His eyes were closed, but squeezed tight as if he was trying to blot out the existence of this entire world. Tension rippled off of him. Rodney leaned forward, intending to call out to him, but when he opened his mouth, his voice caught deep in his throat.

What could he possibly say? Hang on, Sheppard, we'll get you out of this? Everything's going to be okay? It's not as bad as it looks? Whatever they want, don't give it to them? He almost laughed at the inanities that suddenly flooded through his mind. _Come on, genius. Say something, _he scoffed, but instead he shook his head and stared on helplessly.

Fire Pit Man was stirring the embers again, and the chief and all the other painted freaks stood in a line facing Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon. Sheppard squirmed on the stretcher, but the ropes were tight and his body hardly moved. Rodney could see his ribs heaving at his sides.

Flames spit into the air, crackling in the growing dusk, and Sheppard opened his eyes. Rodney watched them widen when he suddenly realized his team was kneeling and bound less than five feet away from him with only a large fire pit in between. His squirming renewed with intensity, and Rodney could see his hands turning white from lack of blood.

Ronon's squirming also increased, and he groaned with barely contained rage. Fire Pit Man stirred the embers one last time, then pulled out the stick. A deep, sickening dread plunged through Rodney's gut at the sight of the glowing, white-hot tip.

oOo

"Hello," Sheppard called out, waving his hand at the trees. The villagers had yet to appear.

Rodney glanced down at the life-signs detector and nodded at the questioning glance Sheppard shot him. A dozen white dots spread out in a crescent in front of them. They were there, just not visible.

"My name is Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard," Sheppard announced, raising his voice so that it carried through the trees. "We're explorers. We came through the stargate…uh, the ring of the Ancestors."

A shadow moved from behind a tree, and Rodney heard Ronon's gun power up. The man was tenser than multi-walled carbon nanotubes.

"Put that away, you oaf, before we all get shot," he spat.

"McKay's right, Ronon. Lower your weapon."

Sheppard lifted his hands, turning his palms toward the trees to show whoever was watching them that they held no weapon. Ronon slowly lowered his gun, but his glare might have been able to burn the entire forest down.

"Uh…we come in peace?" Sheppard asked, taking another squelching step forward.

Rodney risked a glance down at his feet. He had sunk up to his ankles again. He could feel the cold mud soaking through his clothes and dripping into his boots. He hated mud. He should have stayed in his lab. His nice, clean, safe lab.

A man finally stepped out into the light, stopping at the edge of the tree line. He held a long musket, cocking the firing pin and wrapping his finger around the trigger. A long spear poked out the end, and Sheppard took a step back.

"Whoa, okay, hi," he muttered.

_A musket that fires spears. Beautiful,_ Rodney thought.

Ronon was doing that quiet growling thing in the back of his throat that both exasperated and terrified him. Even Teyla had both hands on her weapon, although she had yet to lift it and point it at anyone.

"I am Teyla Emmagen, of Athos," she said. "We seek trading partners and allies in our fight against the Wraith."

The man holding the musket-spear thing ignored her completely. He stared directly at Sheppard. "I am Hevlok-elai, chief of my village. You have trespassed sacred ground."

Rodney looked down at the mud with distaste and caught Sheppard doing the same thing. "We didn't know," Sheppard said, still holding his hands out. "We meant no disrespect."

"The Field of the Disappeared carries the souls of all those lost to us. Your insolence to their memories cannot be forgiven."

Rodney looked across the field they'd trudged through with light-headed horror. A graveyard? They'd just walked across a graveyard? He felt the mud climbing up his shins and he wondered how many bodies he'd stepped on, how many decomposed parts had seeped into his shoes and now clung to his pants. He was sinking into them.

Sick. He was going to be sick. He was going to throw up all over this disgusting, body-ridden field. Sheppard was talking again, as was Teyla, but their voices were drowned out by the effort of not expelling everything he had consumed since breakfast. His stomach twisted and wrenched with alarm, and he dropped his head, forcing air in through his mouth and out through his nose.

A smooth stone sat in the mud near his submerged foot, etching side up. The symbol was different than the one he had looked at in the middle of the field. He turned his head slowly in each direction. There were a lot more stones here, some with their etchings visible, and all different. Every single one.

Grave markers? Names of the dead cut into the rock then deposited into one mass graveyard? If that was true, the amount of dead in this field…the sheer volume…

"Oh, God, I'm going to be sick," he muttered. He felt a hand on his arm, surprisingly gentle given the coiled strength ready to burst out of every other part of Ronon.

"Rein it in, McKay," Sheppard muttered in front of him.

"The stones, the symbols. I think they're like grave markers."

The others looked around, and Rodney watched the growing horror on their faces. The chief's face hardened.

"This cannot go unpunished."

"Hey, now. Wait a second," Sheppard pleaded, but the chief flicked his head and the other villagers spilled out from the trees, heavily armed, their expressions flat.

The chief ordered them off the field, stepping back to give them room. Sheppard hesitated, and the chief's grip tightened on his musket. Rodney heard the mud dripping off his feet as he climbed up out of the field, and he glanced one last time behind him. Mist rippled along the surface, clinging to the dead.

oOo

Their struggle against the villagers had been brief and ineffective. Rodney now sported bruises the shape of boots all along his back. One second his team had been climbing out of the mud and onto firmer forest floor, the next second he'd been lying flat on the ground, inhaling dried up pine needles. He had looked over in time to see someone grab Teyla by the neck and force her to the ground. Sheppard had grunted, a painful gasp as the chief drove the butt of his musket into the man's stomach, dropping him to his knees.

Ronon had put up more of a fight, but by then, Rodney, Sheppard and Teyla had all had boots in the middle of their backs pinning them to the ground. It had taken four villagers and a significant number of punches and kicks to subdue the Satedan, but eventually their arms had been yanked behind them and their wrists bound. They'd been dragged through the woods to the small log hut in the center of the small village.

Now the bruises were stiffening along his back. Fire Pit Man held the white-hot tip of his stick, twisting it around in the air. The air shimmered around it with the transfer of heat. Rodney looked from it to the chief to Sheppard strapped to the board, his bare feet hanging in the air.

Ronon seemed to lose all control, convulsing and contorting his body against the ropes, falling to the ground in his effort to undo the bindings. He twisted around in the dirt, screaming, and the veins popped out on his forehead and neck. Teyla was still leaning into Rodney. She was screaming too, but he could feel her shaking.

He closed his eyes, then opened them slowly, hoping this was all a dream. His gaze immediately focused on Sheppard. He thought the man was staring back at him, but then realized he was riveted on the tip of the hot metal stick. Fire Pit Man moved at some invisible signal, taking up a position at Sheppard's feet.

Rodney closed his eyes and cursed his weakness, his inability to watch his friend suffer. Sheppard screamed, a high-pitched screech that ripped through the air. The sound tore through Rodney until he was hunched forward with his face in the dirt, swallowing back the bile that threatened to erupt out of him. If any sound could crack through heaven and hell itself, it was the wail of pain enveloping all of them.

There was no possible way he could have heard the flesh sizzle against the burning metal, but his imagination proved to be particularly adept at filling in the gaps. Teyla was demanding that they stop, but it came out as more of a rough sob. Ronon still fought, his own roar joining Sheppard's pain, and Rodney was convinced the man was going to break every bone in his body before he managed to break the ropes.

He wasn't sure at what point Sheppard stopped screaming. The next thing he knew, rough hands were pulling him up off the ground and dragging all three of them through the village. The rope around his ankles was loosened enough for him to stand upright and take small steps, but it burned as it rubbed against the skin. He saw the flicker of movement as people peered around their small huts to stare at the procession.

Sheppard was still strapped to the board and being carried in front of them. Rodney swore he could see smoke drifting off the bloody, charred soles of his bare feet, and he stumbled as his stomach flipped. He coughed to hide the gag, just managing to swallow it back before hands pulled him back to his feet and callously propelled him onward.

He wasn't sure how long they walked. He could hear Ronon and Teyla breathing heavily behind him. His feet were about ready to fall off. It wasn't until he glanced off to the side and saw the Field of the Disappeared did he realize they were being led back to the gate. Were they going to just let them go? He could only hope, but they'd burned the bottoms of Sheppard's feet as punishment for treading through their damn field. What else did they have up their sleeves?

The procession stopped at about the point the team had turned off the path and stepped onto the field, and Rodney knew the gate was only another hour's walk away. The men carrying Sheppard set him on the ground, and the hands on Rodney's shoulders forced him back to his knees. Ronon and Teyla were pushed forward until they knelt on either side of him.

The chief came around to face them, his face a shadow in the growing darkness. Rodney figured that was what the face paint was for—to let them hide in the shadows as they tortured innocent people. The sky had erupted in a tie-dye of purples and blues with a hint of orange as the sun dropped to the horizon. It wouldn't be long before it was pitch black. A villager behind the chief poked a torch into the ground and lit it. Rodney's imagination let loose, conjuring any number of possibilities, each one more horrible than the last. Left as food for some predatory animal? Shot with one of those spear guns? Burned alive?

"You are not welcome on this world," the chief said.

Rodney had any number of responses to that, but his mouth opened and closed without so much as a croak, and then the chief was gone. The other villagers began walking away, and he could hear their soft footsteps retreating back the way they'd come, leaving them, and Sheppard, and the one fiery torch to light their way.

But they were still tied up. Rodney swallowed, working some saliva into his mouth to yell as much when he felt rough hands pull his wrists away from his back. He whimpered at the strain on his shoulders, and then suddenly the rough hands disappeared and his arms dropped freely to his sides.

He twisted around, but the villagers had disappeared back toward their homes. A knife—Sheppard's knife—lay just within reach. He leaned over, wrapping thick fingers around the hilt and winced at the rush of blood into his hands. They were damaged beyond repair, he had no doubt. He was looking at the rest of his life as a double amputee, handless. He sliced through the rope still tied to his ankles.

"McKay, cut me loose," Ronon said. His jaw was clenched tightly and his eyes flashed against the light of the burning torch. "I'm going to kill every last one of them."

"Ronon, do not go after the villagers. Rodney." Teyla turned pleading eyes to him and tried to hold out her hands. He could see a bruise darkening around her throat, and Rodney remembered the villager throwing her to the ground by her neck.

He slid behind Teyla and sliced through the ropes, and she immediately ran over to Sheppard's prone body. Rodney moved to Ronon's ropes, cutting through them with shaking hands. Ronon's arms were mottled with bruises.

"Hurry up, McKay."

"Sorry, sorry," he mumbled, slicing through the last rope around his hands then making quick work of the ones around his legs. Ronon shook the remains of the bindings from his body and pushed himself up to his feet with a roar. Rodney scrambled backward, not sure in which direction the Satedan's rage would strike out.

"Ronon, Rodney, I need your help," Teyla's hoarse voice called out.

The two of them surged forward, and Rodney began slicing through the ropes around Sheppard's wrists. He glanced up to see that Ronon had produced another knife from one of the countless hidden on his body. He couldn't have done that sooner?

Rodney released one of Sheppard's arms, and moved to the other. Sheppard didn't respond and his arm lay stretched out and limp. Teyla was kneeling over him, her face close to his as she whispered reassurances. Sheppard was pale and clammy, and his eyes fluttered and rolled in his head. He breathed in quick pants, spittle dripping off his lip. Rodney rested a hand on his forearm and felt quivering muscles.

"Do you have any bandages?" Ronon asked. Rodney looked up to see he had cut through the ropes around Sheppard's calves.

"No," Teyla whispered.

"We have nothing. All of our equipment and supplies were taken, including our GDOs and radios. How are we supposed to get back to Atlantis or radio them for help? We're not due back for another four hours."

"We will find a way. John does not have that kind of time," Teyla answered.

In the end, Rodney and Ronon carried Sheppard between the two of them, and Teyla led the way, lighting the path with the torch the villagers had left them. Rodney had read the manual on field medicine three times, and he knew the signs of shock backward and forward. Loss of fluids was a major problem with burns, as was the possibility of infection. Sheppard breathed quickly and shallowly, limp and unresponsive in their arms.

Rodney tried to ignore Sheppard's deteriorating condition and his own flagging muscles, but when they reached the gate and saw their equipment piled in front of the DHD, he cried out in relief.

"Hold on, Sheppard. We're almost home."

oOo

Rodney spent three days scrubbing every last inch of his lab until there was not a speck of dirt or dust left. To his amusement, his underlings had stayed away, not sure how to respond to this new facet of Rodney's personality. Rodney would yell at them later for abandoning their work, but for the moment, he valued the silence around him.

He pretended he was working, but in reality, a computer simulation ran effortlessly on his laptop without any input needed from him. He sat in his clean lab anyway and ran his finger along the polished surface of the table.

The tell-tale squeak behind him revealed Sheppard's presence, and Rodney turned to see the man slowly wheel himself into the room. He looked sick and exhausted, and his t-shirt hung on his slim frame. His feet were heavily bandaged and propped up in front of him, but Rodney made an effort not to notice them.

"Does Jennifer know you snuck out?"

"_Doctor _Keller released me," Sheppard answered, shrugging.

"Straight to your quarters, no doubt," Rodney muttered. Sheppard shrugged again, a half smile pulling at the side of his mouth, and Rodney knew that's exactly what Jennifer had done.

"What are you working on?" Sheppard asked, and rolled closer. Rodney looked at the wheelchair with a mixture of disgust and fear, and he flinched at the memory of Sheppard's charred feet.

"Uh…you know, the usual. Jumper modifications, better shields, maximizing our power usage, the secret of the ZPM…"

"Any progress?"

It was Rodney's turn to shrug. He turned back to the laptop on the table and stared at the simulation, arching his fingers like he was about to type. He shifted on the stool and rolled his shoulders at the awkwardness that settled between them.

"Not really. Genius works on its own time schedule."

"Right." Sheppard rolled backward and forward in his wheelchair, making that wheel squeak on purpose.

"Would you stop that?"

Sheppard froze, waiting a beat before rolling back one last time, and Rodney rolled his eyes at the final, small squeak.

"I'm pretty sure _Doctor Keller_ told you to stay off your feet."

"I'm not on my feet, McKay. I'm sitting in a damn wheelchair."

The reply was standard, snarky John Sheppard, but something in his tone made Rodney spin around on his stool to face the man. Sheppard was looking out the window, his gaze locked on not-too-distant memories.

"You okay?"

Sheppard sighed, dropping his head down and Rodney looked down as well. He'd tried to avoid looking at the burned feet, but he couldn't help it now. He saw the village chief's painted face nodding at the man with the burning metal rod, remembered how he'd stood passively throughout Sheppard's entire tortured scream.

"Still hurts like hell, and I can't really put any pressure on the bottoms of my feet yet, so no walking or doing pretty much anything besides sitting or laying in bed."

Rodney nodded, inadvertently shivering and hoping Sheppard didn't catch him. His feet were wrapped in thick white gauze, white and clean. He looked and saw Sheppard watching him.

Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon had all been debriefed soon after returning to Atlantis. Woolsey had been justifiably horrified, leaving them alone to wait for Jennifer's report. It seemed like half the night had passed before she'd come out to let them know Sheppard would be okay. Eventually. A few days after that, Sheppard had given Woolsey his mission report, which Rodney had read, and that was that.

Mission over.

"What did the chief say to you in the hut?" Rodney blurted out, instantly regretting the question when Sheppard flinched visibly. That part of Sheppard's report had been brief—too brief, in Rodney's mind—and it was picking away at him. He had to know.

"Uh…not much really," Sheppard answered.

"At the field, he said we all had to be punished, but you were the only one…I mean, we didn't…you…"

Sheppard frowned at him, genuine confusion pulling at the muscles around his eyes.

_God, the man looked tired._

"I mean, why weren't we punished? Why only you?"

Sheppard's face cleared as understanding dawned. He took a deep breath, glancing out the window again before looking back at Rodney. He shook his head, shrugging.

"I don't know, McKay. He said we would be punished for walking on sacred ground and something about disturbing the rest of the dead and the disappeared, and that's it. They put that paint crap all over their faces and tied me down, and next thing I know, they're carting me outside. You know what happened after that."

"Don't remind me," Rodney mumbled and glanced again at Sheppard's feet. His toes were just visible beyond the end of the gauze—healthy pink flesh. At night, when he closed his eyes, he could hear Sheppard screaming again, tearing a hole through the fabric of space and time, and Rodney wondered if that sound would ever leave him.

"So you didn't say anything to him? You didn't tell him not to burn our feet in some leader-of-the-team heroic crap?"

Sheppard shook his head. "Hell no. I told him not to do anything to any of us."

He started rolling himself back toward the door slowly and with more effort than it should have taken. Rodney stood in his sparkling clean lab watching his friend's deliberate movements. At the door, Sheppard looked over his shoulder.

"You hungry? I was going to meet Teyla and Ronon at the mess for lunch."

"Yeah." Rodney was suddenly ravishingly hungry.

"Good." He sighed, staring at his feet for a moment before looking back at Rodney. His face was still washed of color, but Jennifer had said he was recovering, that he would be fine. Eventually.

"Uh…how about a push?" Sheppard's voice sounded small, almost timid, and Rodney had no idea what to do with that. It had been easier when he didn't really know people.

"Yeah, okay…um…ready?"

Sheppard nodded, and Rodney grabbed the handlebars, walking forward and careful not to knock the man's feet on anything as he maneuvered around each corner. The pocketknife he had stuffed into his sock slipped down into his shoe, and it pressed uncomfortably against his skin with every step. He would get used to it, though. In a few days, he wouldn't even notice it was there.

"Don't get used to this," Rodney said when he couldn't take the silence any longer. He caught the ghost of a smile on Sheppard's face, and he knew that Sheppard knew what he was talking about.

"Don't get used to what?" Sheppard asked anyway as they turned into the crowded mess hall. Teyla and Ronon were already sitting at their usual table on the balcony. Teyla stood up, waving to catch their attention.

"This. I am not going to push your lazy ass all over Atlantis for the next month, Sheppard. Get that through your thick skull right now."

"Never thought you would."

But Rodney did anyway.

END


End file.
